Help Scully and Family Rebuild After Explosion

My name is Scully.

My loved ones - my husband Adam, our best friend and found family member Jason - and I have been rendered homeless by the Orion Township explosion at the Keatington condominiums.

The home we have shared for the last 10 years - where we came together as a family, grew and healed together, and were making slow but steady progress saving for a forever home - has been taken from us all at once. We were the immediate neighboring unit to the explosion. While our building didn’t burn, the blast and subsequent shockwave damaged our building enough that we have been, as of current information, permanently displaced. We have been told by disaster response that the most likely outcome is that the building - with everything inside - will be demolished.

We are seeking funds for covering immediate costs - food, fuel, hygiene, supplies - as they come up, as well as costs of storage for whatever we will be allowed to collect from the now condemned building under escort this Monday.

We have only been given vague answers and half-truths by officials regarding our ability to retrieve belongings, or outright lies. Specifically, we were told the windows/building would be sealed against weather so that our possessions would be safe until we could return to collect them. The reality is that this was likely only said to prevent us from attempting to move things out when we were allowed in the day after for less than 10 minutes to collect paperwork, medication, and what clothing and small precious things could be grabbed without picking/searching. As of now, the building has been blocked off behind locked metal barricades with our broken windows and the exposed roof interior left open to rain and humidity for the last 2 days, and it will likely be left in this condition indefinitely until the entire structure is demolished. This means we expect to replace EVERYTHING - mattresses, furniture, technology, etc.

While this has been stressful enough, due to increasingly hazardous conditions caused by the building being left open to the elements - not so much as boards over windows - we will be unlikely to recover treasured furniture pieces that were hand-built and/or owned by my husband’s grandfather, and recently passed onto us. The grief of losing these heirlooms to what feels like negligence by uncaring authorities has been immense.

Beyond the immediate costs of storage and personal supplies:

Those that know me personally know that I’m an artist. I’m a painter, sculptor, prop master, costume designer - who in the last year managed to build enough momentum to start selling my art at events, well enough to give me my own income after a long time unemployed due to mental health struggles. Even if we are able to retrieve some of my supplies, there is little reason at this time to have faith it will be more than what I’m allowed to carry in limited trips in a short window of time. I am expecting to be at square one on woodworking tools, electric handheld tools, hardware, canvases, paint, fabric, lighting, and so on, not to mention supplies for vending in/outdoors.

This has been a deeply traumatic experience that is still ongoing and unfolding in new and terrible ways daily. Any help is appreciated as we face an uncertain future together.